Mrs Wendy Cobb

I have extensive experience of working with School Based teacher education programmes and have participated in and led several international teaching exchanges in Europe, Africa and Asia. I have worked in primary and secondary schools across Kent, London and Essex in a variety of teaching, leadership, advisory and coaching roles. I am currently academic link tutor for the PGCEi, iQTS link tutor (Asia), Behaviour Priority Lead and Primary Languages tutor on primary ITE programmes.

I have experience of teaching across primary, secondary and higher education, including post graduate research supervision, in both national and international contexts and mentor training.   I was Primary Lead on the Teach First Primary Languages Pilot Programme and a Local Authority languages advisor.

I was also a leadership coach for the Achievement for All charity working closely with schools to develop strong partnerships with parents to support progress for vulnerable pupils. My current teaching interests focus around managing behaviour, emotional health, working with parents, teaching English, second language learning, post graduate research supervision and academic writing. As a local languages advisor, I managed networks of creative cross phase languages partnerships and developed teaching materials for primary schools.

I supported a Croydon schools group on the development of an accelerated approach to language learning from primary to KS3. My support focused on embedding language learning, integrating language and subject content, developing support resources for schools and encouraging a holistic approach to languages education. I continue to provide primary languages INSET with a focus on creative and integrated language learning.

I have been working in partnership with the Family Links Charity on a number of initiatives since 2009, including as project lead for the Family Links Partnership Knowledge Exchange Project Leadership for Emotional Health, Resilience and Well-being. Family Links is a national training organisation which promotes emotional wellbeing and mental health as well as positive parenting skills and delivers training across a variety of settings to enable parents and teachers to become more effective, caring and confident in raising emotionally resilient and socially competent children. I was programme director for the Post Graduate Certificate in Social and Emotional Learning, an initiative developed through the CCCU/Family Links partnership.

I have participated in and led several action research projects including content and language integrated learning, emotional health in collaborative partnerships, teacher/trainee wellbeing and academic writing development.

My masters thesis in Management and Leadership for learning centred on Leadership resilience.

I have peer reviewed languages action research case studies and SEN journal articles.

I am a representative of the Fair Education Alliance (FEA). The FEA is a coalition of over 200 organisations which aims to tackle inequality in the education system. My involvement centres around the FEA priority working towards a cultural transformation in approach to wellbeing and inclusion in the education system.

I have extensive experience as an external educational consultant including as research and advisory consultant for the Accelerated Modern Languages Acquisition (AMLA) project. I have delivered INSETs nationally for behaviour, primary languages, wellbeing, gifted and talented, English as an Additional Language and working with adults.

I was academic and research lead for a School Centred Teacher Training Partnership for eight years and continue to deliver training in primary language teaching for SCITT trainees.

I have acted as peer reviewer and advisor for a range of organisations including National Strategies, OCR (marking and moderation), SEN journal and British Film Institute.

I have participated in several national and international conferences across a range of educational topics and have experience of school governance.

Conference Presentations:
Mrs Wendy Cobb (2021) Changing Situations - Bringing Innovations BTSC Professional Development Conference, Pakistan [conference key note]
Dr Christian Beighton, Mrs Wendy Cobb and Mrs Hilary Welland (2020) Conflict, collaboration and counterpoint: analysing iterative research techniques within the research development narrative, ESREA [Conference or workshop item]
Dr Christian Beighton, Mrs Wendy Cobb, Mrs Hilary Welland, Publish or perish? Using iterative research techniques to trouble the research development narrative. [Conference or workshop item]
Mrs Wendy Cobb, Dr Emily Lau, and Ms Zoe Wallington, The limits of labels and measures. Exploring the use of formative assessment to measure social and emotional learning, mindsets and character traits in Blackpool, BSA Social Mobility Conference [Conference or workshop item]
Mrs Wendy Cobb and Mrs Jennifer Shearman, The power of partnership for social and emotional health – a different kind of teaching OMEP [Conference or workshop title]
Mrs Wendy Cobb and Mr. Nick Haisman-Smith, Creating Emotionally Healthy Learning Communities through Research Informed Partnerships, TEAN [conference or workshop title]
Mrs Wendy Cobb and Mr David Matthews, A KS2/3 model for effective cross-phase learning, Association of Language Learning, [conference or workshop title]
Mrs Wendy Cobb, Cross-curricular initiatives in cross-phase partnerships, Building on Firm Foundations, Association of Language Learning [conference or workshop title]